1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to the field of communications, and in particular, to a monitoring system that provides real-time data on the velocity of a mobile communication device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Existing traffic monitoring systems use various sensors, such as radar devices and video cameras, to collect traffic data. Such monitoring systems are expensive to install and maintain. In addition, these systems only monitor a very limited portion of the nation's roadways.
Other existing traffic monitoring systems work with mobile telephone carriers to gather and analyze data on cellular tower handoff frequency. Unfortunately, this data is not anonymous. It contains personal information that can be tied back to individuals. Personal identifying information is disassociated from the data record only after it is already in the monitoring system. Thus, these systems raise privacy concerns that inhibit further deployment.
Another drawback of traffic monitoring systems that work in conjunction with mobile telephone carriers is the burden placed on cellular base stations. These monitoring systems require additional processing in the cellular base stations to deliver the handoff data in real-time. Alternatively, these monitoring systems deliver handoff data through batch reporting. While the batch reporting is less taxing on the cellular system, the value of the data is greatly diminished because real-time traffic reporting is not possible.
None of the existing traffic monitoring systems provide reliable, accurate, inexpensive, anonymous, real-time, nation-wide traffic reporting that does not excessively burden the cellular network.